Since I don't know if there is a forum for this.... I'll post it here.... where my classy-cat belongs....

so here is the question:

is anybody (or has anybody) experimented with HHO?

There is a big discussion in on of the other forums that I belong to (www.explorerforum.com).... the thread itself is 100+ pages long, with several (maybe 50) posts per page.... all I read pointed to no definite benefits...

Anyone here done it?

FYI HHO=HydrogenHydrogenOxygen http://www.hydrofuelgenerator.com/

 

If it is all true, why isn't every manufacturer in the world using it ?
The whole principal is deeply flawed; you cannot get something for nothing. Energy out cannot be more than energy in.

 

Yes, I agree, just like hungry people never burp.

 

not sure about that.... but just think about this... why is there an aftermarket parts "market"? why don't all the manufactures install HID or thiker swaybars, or turbos or ... ?

I just saw it out there and thought it'd be interesting to know if someone had done it...

I thought the energy came from breaking the bonds that hold the H2O molecules together... I guess that's why I flunked chemistry class... the hydrogen allowed for better combustion of the gas?

 

It takes more energy to break the bonds between Hydrogen and Oxygen than you get back in turn by using it as fuel. Otherwise you could create a machine that uses a generator to run electric current through water, to break the bonds, to create hydrogen and oxygen to use as fuel, to run an engine to turn the generator.

 

yeah... exactly.
Does anybody have numbers or can do some numbers about this one?

 

I think maybe I was a bit too harsh in my last post.

Now we can buy the so-called Hybrid cars at the dealerships, we can see that until these were introduced, cars dumped a lot of waste energy to the atmosphere in the form of (1) hot exhaust gas, and (2) heat off the brakes.

A Hybrid car is able to use the energy of braking by converting it to electricity and storing it in a battery for use later, rather than this energy going to waste into the air via the brake discs. Note that with all cars, the hot exhaust gas continues to be wasted, but hybrids turn the engine off when not needed so do make some saving on this.

The hybrids move the car along the highway using the normal engine, plus an electric motor driven by the battery, with the motor converting to a generator when the driver brakes the car. This involves a very sophisticated braking system just to do this and also ensure the car can stop OK at all times without any problems.

The normal engine in the car drives the car direct and the electric motor switches between motor and generator as the need arises. For instance, if you want sudden acceleration, the electric motor will assist the petrol engine rather than extra fuel being burned, and in town at low speeds, the petrol engine is switched off if the battery is fully charged-up, and the electric motor powers the car on its own.

Electric trains in Europe, and probably in the US, have a similar system by use of what is called "regenerative braking" using the locomotive's electric motors as generators when braking, to put power back into the overhead wires to be used by other trains, or to reduce the load at the power station, so again surplus energy that would be dumped to atmosphere as braking heat is reused.

The so-called HHO device's working proposition is to use electricity from the car's alternator to split water via electrolysis to produce oxygen and hydrogen, a well established method of making hydrogen; the oxygen is less important as it is already present in large quantities in the atmosphere (all animals including us breathe it and would die without it !!). So assuming the device is using surplus energy then it is a way of storing up energy in the form of hydrogen for use later in the car's engine. OK so far. However what it cannot do is generate more energy than is consumed to produce the hydrogen, so if there is to be any saving at all as claimed, it has to use surplus, normally wasted, energy and this it does not seem to do, unlike a hybrid car.

From what I can determine the device puts a continuous load on the engine's alternator to make the hydrogen, a load which would not normally be present, and which can only be overcome by burning more fuel. Back to Square One !!

The only way as far as I can see for any HHO device to give any benefit at all would be to detect driver braking, at which point the car is not using any fuel, to switch on the cars alternator to provide the amps for electrolysis, and the additional drag of the alternator which is now under load, relieves the effort needed by the driver to brake and thus heat up the brake discs. However a lot more mechanical equipment would be needed to optimise the device, and anyway, Toyata have done it all for you at a reasonable price with the Prius.

Other car manufacturers will no doubt follow Toyota as fuel gets expensive, but there is a far easier way for US drivers to save on fuel, and that is to insist on diesel cars being made available, like the very excellent V6 2.7 and now 3 litre diesels in the S-Type, the XF, and the XJ saloons. These are only available in Jaguar's other markets especially Europe where petrol is fast becoming a luxury product !! Now over £6 a UK gallon or $8

Maybe we will see a Jaguar hybrid in production based on the C-X75 concept car. This car is totally driven by electric motors, with the engines used to power generators. And what engines - miniature gas turbines !! Lets hope they can be developed to last a long time and cost the same as the good old piston engine.

 

My understanding of hho is that engines don't run at 100% efficiency and that the hho being introduced isn't to replace the gas but helps increase the efficiency of the fuel burn.

 

either way I do have a hho kit that I plan to experiment with on my 04 x-type 3.0L.. Not much room under the hood to mount the reservoir seems to be the first snag.

 

When I lived in Florida a couple of years ago, two acquaintances bought the cells, after I explained to them that as a chemist it did not make sense. After six months of telling me how much better the fuel economy was they both removed them, claiming that they stopped working. I still doubt that they worked in the first place.
The person who sold them claimed he had a cell on his lawn mower and didn't buy any gas, just water, but I never met that individual.